Getting K-12 Education Organizations to Rethink their Retention and Inclusion Practice at the Top

Earlier this week, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute hosted an event to share and discuss findings from Ed Fuel’s recent report, Hidden in Plain Sight: Tomorrow’s Education Leaders Already Working for You. The report found that effective and diverse K-12 education leaders tend to leave their organizations due to a lack of career development and advancement opportunities.

The authors sent surveys to over 2,500 leaders in school districts, charter school management organizations, and education intermediaries regarding the talent and career development available to them at their organizations. They then compared results by respondents who would recommend their organizations as “a place to build a career” versus those who would not to determine what organizational characteristics encourage employee retention. While the report’s results are based on a small, non-representative sample of leaders’ perspectives--the survey had only a 15 percent response rate--it provides interesting insight into hiring, development, and retention across organizations, as well as some strategies for rethinking these practices in order to get and keep great talent at the top.   

Professional supports coupled with compensation and clear career paths most likely to improve retention:

According to the report, sixty percent of respondents planned on leaving their organizations within the next three years.

According to the report, sixty percent of respondents planned on leaving their organizations within the next three years. But the authors found that compensation played a negligible role in retention among K-12 education sector leaders, and suggested that financial resources be better allocated toward career and skill development opportunities. Only 19 percent of survey respondents cited compensation as a key factor in deciding to leave their current role compared to the 33 percent citing a lack of development opportunities. Respondents desired supports such as real-time feedback, consistent professional development, established mentorship programs, and clear pathways for career advancement.

Despite the report’s recommendation on where to refocus resources, the top factor driving attrition was neither compensation nor current development opportunities but rather career advancement elsewhere--reported by over half of respondents. Career advancement is often associated with an increase in salary, and it is unclear from the survey results how much compensation played a role in respondents placing a high importance on this factor. Regardless, organizations should consider “grow your own” strategies that groom leaders for their next role within their current organization, reducing the need for them to go elsewhere for advancement.

Organizations should balance short-term and long-term hiring needs:

Ed Fuel found that organization CEOs and Superintendents were twice as likely than other staff members to prioritize candidate recruitment over retention. At the event, Talia Shaull, a Tulsa Public Schools fellow working with the Human Capital department, described the difficulty of balancing near-term hiring needs with developing long-term leadership pipelines. In her experience, developing school system leaders is largely a reactive strategy, only prioritized when a leader steps down.

This approach, however, is short-sighted. Recruitment, training, and orientation of new staff can cost organizations half the annual salary for that position. And research has found that attrition of school leaders can negatively impact student achievement in those schools, particularly in high-need schools that may hire less-experienced, and less-effective replacements.  

Recruitment, training, and orientation of new staff can cost organizations half the annual salary for that position.

The report recommends that education organizations take a more proactive approach to identifying and building the high-skill talent already within their ranks. Despite limited budgets and capacity, panelists made clear that states and districts have affordable, accessible options for talent development, including job-shadowing programs, internal mentoring networks, growth opportunity panels, and formal, well-communicated promotion practices.

Increase diversity at all levels of education, including leadership, but do so thoughtfully:

Just as teachers of color are underrepresented in America’s classrooms, so too are leaders of color underrepresented at the highest levels of education leadership. As a result, Ed Fuel’s report continually highlighted the importance of “prioritizing diversity” throughout the education sector, including among top leaders.   

Panel participants suggested the lack of minority representation could  be the result of hiring managers “checking a box” when it comes to diversity--for instance, by hiring single representatives instead of working to ensure substantive minority representation.  Such practices  are not a sincere effort to diversify organizations, but a shallow charade of “inclusivity.” Deborah McGriff, a Managing Partner with NewSchools Venture Fund, suggested “critical mass theory” as a potential lens for ensuring hiring practices promote greater diversity. Critical Mass Theory, traditionally associated with gender diversity in corporate management positions, proposes that a minority group must make up at least thirty percent of an organization for their interests to be fairly represented and protected.

While hiring quotas are not the answer, education organizations should strive to ensure considerable minority representation among leadership and a more inclusive work environment. The report found that respondents  who would recommend their organization were significantly more likely to feel sufficiently supported and have mentorship opportunities. This was especially true for African American and Hispanic respondents, underscoring their importance for developing and retaining leaders of color.

Assess which professional supports and hiring practices might work and are working:

Many of Hidden in Plain Sight’s findings seem intuitive. For instance, people enjoy jobs where they are supported and see opportunities for growth, and will leave if they lack such opportunities.

People enjoy jobs where they are supported and see opportunities for growth, and will leave if they lack such opportunities:

But, as with teacher professional development, there is a need for more high-quality research on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to development opportunities that advance the effectiveness and retention of diverse education leaders. The report recommends that education organizations measure and test new support strategies via employee satisfaction surveys and competency maps showing employee progress over time. And before reallocating resources from recruitment and compensation towards new professional growth and retention strategies, organizations should consider their particular staffing needs, as there is no “one-size-fits-all”approach to hiring and retaining effective and diverse employees. "